


Sing My Imperfect Offering

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is a writer, a recluse, and in love with his delivery boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aside

Chris didn't mean to stop going outside. He just found less and less reasons to. 

He has a phone and the internet. He can get his food delivered. He can get medication delivered. He can even get booze delivered. The world is at his fingertips, so why should he bother lifting them further than a keyboard? He has a cat that's lived it's whole life inside, no dog to walk or let out. He's never been friendly with the neighbors. His agent handles all the meetings with the publishers. 

All he has to do is make sure the drafts are in her inbox on time, and she leaves him alone. They all leave him alone. 

Sure, sometimes his fans start bothering him about signings. That internet petition was touching and at the same time sent him into an anxiety spiral that lasted two weeks and ended with his therapist coming to his house. Still, it's the thought that counts, and he knows they mean well. He tried to sound as sincere as he possibly could in his tweets.  

Life used to be so complicated. 

It's not complicated anymore, and when it is he knows that it's all in his own mind. He has no one left to blame for himself, but he's willing to let himself slide because the idea of doing anything to fix this is just - it's too much. 

His social circle, that dwindling number of people that he can tolerate to be in the presence of, can be counted in single digits now. His parents come once or twice a year to bring his sister but it's uncomfortable and he always wishes the visits were over as soon as they've begun. His therapist shows up once a month like clockwork, but as long as the money is flowing he'll keep getting what he needs and she won't push him for any more. 

And then there's Darren. 

Darren, the delivery guy, the person who steps into his world three times a week with an easy smile. When Chris began to need things he couldn't easily get, he posted the ad online. 

It's probably one of the best decisions he's ever made. 

Darren is the reason that three days a week, Chris rises at eight am and shaves and puts on clothes that aren't pajamas. He's the reason Chris cleans up the front entryway and the hallway, even going so far as cooking himself breakfast so the house smells warm and inviting. 

Three times a week Darren shows up with whatever it is that Chris needs. It started out with just groceries, but when seeing  _Darren_  was what Chris began to need he found more to request. Now Darren brings him the mail from his PO box, and any other odds and ends he might think up. 

The best thing about Darren to Chris (besides his eyes, besides his voice, besides that easy smile) is that he's never once asked Chris why he can't do it himself. He's never looked at Chris like he was a freak or dysfunctional. 

He brings in the boxes or bags and puts them in the living room beside the doorway. He bends to bet the cat if it's come to investigate him. He makes small talk with Chris, lingering just long enough that it's fulfilling without staying so long that Chris starts to get nervous. 

And then Chris floats for a few hours after, feeling like nothing can bring him down. 

Until he crashes from the high and then he's left miserable and wrecked. The days in between Darren's visits are the worst. Sometimes he doesn't leave the bed. 

*

Sometimes Chris thinks Darren has to know. 

They did a full background check on him before he started working for Chris. Chris hadn't done it himself, of course, but his agent his thorough. 

She's too good for him. She takes care of him in so many ways her job doesn't call for. 

Then again, on the other hand, he makes a fuck ton of money for them with his books, so maybe it evens out in the end. 

*

It's a Thursday, not a Darren day, and there's a knock on the door. 

His heart pounds. His stomach clenches. 

He tries to ignore it, but the knocking doesn't stop. 

He creeps through the house. He's wearing pajama pants and no shirt. The cat skulks behind him. 

He peeks through the spy hole and-

It's Darren. 

The surge of adrenaline hits so hard it's almost physically jarring. His hand undoing the lock before he can even think twice about it. 

"Chris!" Darren's face lights up. "You didn't fucking  _tell_  me-" 

"What?" Chris has a white knuckled grip on the door. "Why are you here, it's Thursday?"

Darren looks stricken. "I - shit. I'm sorry. I didn't even think- I was just in the neighborhood and-" 

Oh, oh  _no_. Chris feels short of breath. Darren looks upset. What if he stops coming? What if he just ruined it. No,  _no_ , Chris thinks. He feels like he's going to be sick. 

Now Darren is staring at him and he doesn't look angry, just... concerned. 

Chris takes a shaky step back and shuts the door. 

*

Darren shows up the next day, right on time.

Chris hasn't slept at all. He hasn't eaten, either.

It's been a bad night.

He's dressed, though, showered and shaved.  

"Hey," Darren says, careful but not - not unfriendly. "I brought you something. To make up for yesterday, okay? I shouldn't have just shown up like that." 

He holds a bag out. It's a pale green bag with a pink flowery cupcake design on the front. 

Chris takes the bag and opens it up. Inside are two cinnamon rolls, huge and drenched in icing and still warm. 

Chris looks up at Darren. He blinks hard, trying not to cry, knowing the thread-thin grasp on his emotions has to be lack of sleep. 

"Thanks," he mumbles, and walks into the kitchen to put the cinnamon rolls away and collect himself. 

When he comes back out his mail is neatly on the table, his grocery bags are lined in a row against the wall, and Darren is gone. 

* 

"What do you do?" Chris asks Darren, a few weeks later. 

"Huh?" Darren looks up from where he's sorting out the groceries, confused.

Sometimes Chris forgets that with seclusion comes the erosion of social graces. He tries again. "I mean, for a living. Or - what do you want to do? Besides... delivery?"

Darren grins at him, popping to his feet. "Oh, I only deliver for you now. I mean, I was working at a grocery store when you first started calling, and answering ads on craigslist. But I got a steady gig since then. I'm a musician. I play at this little cafe four nights a week, and I give music lessons." 

"I used to take piano," Chris says, smiling at the memory. 

"Oh yeah? Were you any good?" Darren asks. 

Chris shrugs. "I was just a kid." 

* 

When Chris daydreams about Darren, it's always about a life they'd have in the real world. 

If Chris were normal. 

It's about how much fun it would be to watch Darren run around a playground with their kids. 

Movie dates and making out in the back row at the theater. 

Holding hands on a walk through the park. 

He likes wide open spaces in his daydreams, he likes imagining easy freedom for both of them. 

He'd love to have Darren, but he'd never want to trap Darren with him. 

* 

It's the week before Christmas. Chris has hot cocoa ready when Darren comes in. 

So worth scalding his fingertips on the pan while he heated milk for the look of bliss on Darren's face when he takes a sip. They're sitting on Chris's couch, one at each end but turned in to face each other. 

Darren looks so good right there. Chris wouldn't want to trap Darren, but he'd love to keep him for just a little while. 

"Are you going home soon?" Chris asks. 

The previous year, Darren had. The week around the holiday had stretched on endlessly, waiting waiting waiting for that knock on his door again. 

"Not this year," Darren says. "My parents are flying out to New York to see my brother, but I need to stay and work. So if you need anything later on this week... I'll be around."

"You must have plans with friends, then," Chris says, wistfully looking out the window. 

It's California, so of course it isn't any sort of snowy picturesque scene. He can imagine Darren at a bonfire on the beach laughing and drinking with a Santa hat on. 

He looks back down at his mug, half empty.

"Not really," Darren says. There's hesitation in his voice and then he goes on. "I could, you know, if you want me to, I could pick up something and bring it to you. Be a shame if you missed out on a hot meal on Christmas, you know?" 

"Would you stay and eat with me?" Chris asks, finding the nerve from somewhere deep within him though he can't look Darren in the eye when he does.  

"Look at me," Darren says. He waits until Chris lifts his chin and looks at him dead on. 

Darren reaches out and grabs Chris's hand. It's the first touch he's felt besides that of his mother or his sister in a very long time. He feels dizzy with it. He grabs back as if it's a lifeline, much too tightly to really be appropriate. He doesn't even notice.   

"I'd love to," Darren says. 

*

Chris wakes up on Christmas morning humming. 


	2. Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can’t you stay where you are, just for now  
> I could be your perfect disaster  
> You could my ever after  
> \- “Ever After” by Marianas Trench

Darren stays now, sometimes. 

Just for a few hours, and not every time. He waits until Chris invites him. 

Some days Chris just - he can't. Some days even answering the door feels too daunting. 

But sometimes it's like Darren brings the sunlight in with him and Chris would beg if he had to. Darren never makes him, though. 

He sits on the couch and that traitorous cat goes straight to him, crawling onto his lap and purring like he rarely does for Chris. 

Chris doesn't really blame him. If Darren petted him like that, stroked down his back with those strong, warm fingers, Chris would probably purr, too. 

* 

Darren calls one morning before he comes. 

"Do you drink coffee?" He asks. "I was thinking about grabbing some for myself." 

"No, but I'll try it," Chris says. He can't, won't, doesn't say no to that. "Bring me - just bring me whatever you drink." 

The call ends and he sits down at a chair at his kitchen table and looks down at his hands. 

How long as it been since he's had a new experience in life? 

Far, far too long. 

*

He actually hates the coffee. 

But he likes the cute way Darren smiles, and how Darren brings him a muffin, too. 

He likes  _everything_ about Darren, but the best thing of all is how Darren makes him want to try new things again. 

* 

There's a call one night. 

It comes too late for Chris to answer. He's still awake, he sees it ring, but he never answers his phone after nine pm. 

Bad news comes at night. 

It's Darren. Well, not according to the phone - the phone just reads  _Delivery_ , because that's what Darren is entered into Chris's phone as. 

His stomach knots as he watches it ring and ring and ring. 

He doesn't let out his breath until voicemail picks up. 

He's too nervous to even listen to the message. Darren just came by that morning; he's got two days. 

(Bad news comes at night.) 

* 

He never works up the courage to listen to the message. 

But Darren shows up two days later, just as expected. He's smiling and happy and he has an ice cold Diet Coke and a hamburger for Chris. 

"I got mustard, no mayo on it, and pickles. 'cause you've never had me pick up mayo, so I figured you don't eat it?" Darren bounces like a puppy waiting for it's pat on the head after a timely fetch. 

Chris smiles down at the takeout bag. "That sounds perfect. Thank you." 

He doesn't usually eat pickles on his hamburgers. They're just for eating by themselves. 

"You got food for yourself, too, right?" Chris asks, looking around for a second bag. 

Darren's face gets even brighter. "I left it in the car, but I can go get it?"

"Yes," Chris says, and walks into the kitchen. 

He keeps glancing at the bag as he gets out plates, paper towels, two cans of Diet Coke. 

He could pick the pickles off right now. Darren would never know. 

Then Darren is back, bounding inside. He takes a seat at the table (not the one Chris always sits at) and pulls out his meal. 

Chris sits opposite him. They don't talk as they eat. 

The pickles are delicious. 

* 

On a Friday, Chris is thrown into a tailspin. 

His therapist - Thursday, she comes every third  _Thursday_ \- has to reschedule for a Friday. 

He tries to call Darren to cancel but it's a bad day. 

He emails his agent and asks her to do it. 

He doesn't realize she doesn't get the email until it's too late. 

There's no overlap. His therapist has been gone for a couple hours by the time Darren knocks on the door but Chris... he needs  _recovery_ time, after people. 

He's just not himself when he answers the door. 

Darren must know, but he's still the kindest person Chris has ever met for hot addressing it. 

"Want some company?" He asks quietly. 

"I. I." Chris stutters, arms wrapped around himself. There should be words, but he just can't find them. He stares at the ground, miserable. 

"I brought my guitar," Darren says. "I could go get it." 

Chris looks up and nods and whispers, "Please." 

* 

Chris sits on the ground with his back to the couch. Darren sits in a chair six feet away. 

He doesn't recognize any of the songs Darren plays. He thinks maybe Darren wrote them and just the idea makes him fall a little bit more in love. 

Mostly just lets Darren's voice wrap him up and take him away, though. His fingers unclench from the fists they're curled into and the sick pounding in his chest fades to the normal beat of a heart. 

Peace steals inside of him so subtly that he doesn't even realize he's drifting off until the music stops. 

"Chris," Darren says, voice low. Chris blinks up and Darren's tight there, so close. Then he kneels and he's even closer. "Hey, I'm sorry, I've gotta go - unless you need me to stay. I can call in work." 

"No," Chris says. "It's okay. You can go." 

Darren stands again but he offers a hand down. Chris takes it, and he doesn't let go when he's on his feet. 

Darren doesn't either. Chris steps in unsteadily, in and in and in until he can feel the heat of Darren's skin on his own.

He doesn't touch. He doesn't hug. But he's close, and Darren lets him be close. Darren doesn't even seem freaked out.

"Hey," Darren says, smiling a little. "Get some sleep, okay? I'll let myself out." 

Chris nods and he doesn't wait for Darren to get his things together, just go into his bedroom. 

Darren stayed, and Darren  _sang_ to him.  

Chris sits down on the edge of his bed and he smiles. 


	3. Almost Lover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye, my almost lover  
> Goodbye, my hopeless dream  
> \- Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy

It's midway through February when Chris brings up Darren to his therapist. 

He doesn't actually listen to the things the therapist says all of the time. She's there to help him keep the thread on his sanity and keep him supplied with the pills he needs. 

His agent keeps trying to set him up with someone new, but this is who he's seen for years and he's comfortable with it. Maybe she'll even do some good if he's actually ready to let her. 

"There's a boy," he says, because today he feels like talking. So he does. He talks about Darren, talks until the hour is up, and it feels like every word is wrenched right out of the previously empty spot in his chest. 

(He doesn't know it, but the therapist thinks that he's never sounded sadder.) 

*

The first thing that changes is that he wants to touch. 

He's never been a physical person. Even as a child; hugs were for Hannah, for his mother when she cried. 

As a teenager, no one wanted to touch him and the easiest way not to care was to pretend he didn't want to be touched anyway. 

Then, later on - it wasn't an act. Hands on him made his skin crawl, made him feel suffocated and short of breath. 

But he watches Darren's hands and he wants to know what they'd feel like on him. He wakes at night sweaty and turned on with the remnants of dreams full of bodies together, but in his waking hours, it's just - 

_The touch of a fingertips_. He heard it somewhere once and scoffed; it's a silly romantic notion. 

It still is, really. It's just one he finds himself succumbing to. 

*

Love is inspiring. 

Chris has never written more, or better. 

His publishers are thrilled. He's got a fat bonus check rotting in his bank account. His agent can probably send her firstborn to college on what she's raked in from him alone this year. 

He celebrates by buying the ridiculous huge Harry Potter movie box set. 

Maybe, he thinks, Darren will watch with him. They've talked about Harry Potter, before. They're both fans. 

(They have so much in common.)

There's never been more demand for him. Appearances, signings, interviews. He sticks to his guns, though; email interviews, and offering copies he signs from home.

He lets them have a little fun, though. They do a scavenger hunt and he personalizes copies for the winners. He tweets more than normal, and even engages with fans a little.

It's good.

Maybe even, he dares to think, getting better.  

*

"Darren?" Chris is frantic, voice high and sharp. 

"Chris? Hey, what's-" 

"The cat is sick. I can't - I need - can you come?" 

"Shit, yeah - fuck. I can be there, um, twenty minutes? Fifteen if I can miss the lights." 

Chris doesn't even know where Darren lives. He has no clue if Darren was home when he called, or how far away home is. 

The cat is in his lap, listless. Chris pets and pets and pets it with too much pressure and it just inches it's head closer. 

He leans down and presses repeated kisses to the top of its warm head. It lets out a half-hearted little mewl. 

He doesn't want to move to unlock the door when the knock comes, so he carries the cat with him. The carrier is by the door already. 

"Oh, you poor girl," Darren says, taking her from Chris's arms. "What vet do you take her to?" 

"Here." Chris thrusts a sheet of paper with an address printed off. "I called ahead and they have my card information to cover all of the expenses. I filled out the paperwork for her with them over the phone." 

Darren looks taken aback. "You're not- uh, yeah, okay. I - okay." 

He cuts himself off but they both know what he was going ask. 

Chris wraps his arms around himself and steps back. "I can't," he whispers. "I'm sorry." 

"No, don't even - don't apologize, okay? It's fine. I'll take care of her - um, what's her name, actually?" Darren asks. 

Chris looks at the wall. "She doesn't have one. I just call her the cat."

Darren nods. "Okay. The Cat. We can work with that. I'll call you, okay? As soon as they've looked at her." 

They get her in the carrier and Chris stands in the doorway watching them walk away. 

* 

Darren doesn't call like he promised, but he's gone for a shorter time than Chris had expected. 

When he shows back up he's empty handed, but quick with words. "They're just keeping her overnight, okay? They need to get her fluids and antibiotics. They think she's gonna be fine." 

Chris turns and swiftly walks away. He doesn't know where he's going, but Darren follows him. 

Darren follows him right into the bedroom and Chris doesn't even realize until the sob in his chest breaks free and Darren's arms are around him. 

* 

"She's just a cat," he says. 

His head is against Darren's chest, his whole self feeling caught in the warmth of Darren's arms as they sit on floor in front of the bed. 

"She's  _your_  cat," Darren says. "And you'll get her back tomorrow. TC's made of some pretty strong stuff, okay?"

"TC?" Chris wipes his eyes against Darren's shirt. It's soft, so soft, navy blue with an M on it. 

Later when he thinks back he'll be floored by how much it didn't scare him to be touched. 

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. Uh, stands for The Cat." Darren's hand rubs down his back. 

Chris laughs brokenly. "You named my cat." 

"Yeah, I guess I did." Darren laughs, too. 

* 

Chris's arm is numb from lack of circulation, from being pressed between Darren'e back and the end of the bed. When they finally stand, he rubs his fingers into the skin until it tingles sharply. 

"I have to get to work soon," Darren says. 

He always sounds so sorry when he has to go. Chris looks at his shoulder and thinks  _I was just right there._

"But," Darren goes on. "I'll pick her up tomorrow, okay? They said just after lunch." 

"Thank you," Chris whispers, breathing in. 

Then Darren is gone and Chris crawls into bed, marveling at how a day can be so awful and so good at the same time. 

* 

Darren's back the next afternoon and Chris has already cleaned the house twice over, fidgety with nerves. It's later than they had planned, because the vet wants to give her another dose of the medicine and make sure she doesn't react badly. 

Or maybe just wants to charge Chris for another day's boarding, but Chris doesn't care. He hand over all of his money for his cat back home safely.

He wants his cat back, and he wants to see Darren, too. 

The cat is howling in her carrier as soon as they're inside the house, wanting out. She shoots straight for Chris and winds around his legs. 

"I've got medicine for you to keep giving her, and the lady said there were instructions in the bag," Darren says. 

Darren looks good today. His hair looks soft and Chris feels tipped off balance at the layer of depth to his wanting now, because he can remember how Darren smells and how good he feels to lean against. He's been an addict in waiting all along and now he's had his first taste. 

He wants more.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" Chris asks, the cat still in his arms. "I want to thank you, and - and. I want to have dinner with you."

Darren's eyes go wide and he scratches his jaw. "Uh, I can't, actually." 

Oh. 

"Oh." Chris looks down. "Work?" 

"Um." Darren shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I, uh. Actually, I've got a date." 

_Oh_. 

Chris nods jerkily, and he knows his voice will give too much away so he doesn't say anything else. 

Darren is looking at him like he's sad and like he's sorry and it hurts, fuck, it hurts so much, because Darren has never pitied him before. 

The silence goes on and on and on until Darren sighs and says, "I'll see you Monday, okay?" 

Chris watches him leave, and once the door is closed he sits on the ground and pets his cat until the cat won't have any more of it. 

Then he goes to his computer and emails his agent to ask her to find him a new delivery person. 


	4. And So It Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and I would choose to be with you  
> that's if the choice were mine to make  
> but you can make decisions to  
> and you can have this heart to break  
> \- And So It Goes by Billy Joel

Chris Colfer is the strangest person that Darren has ever met. 

He strange, but beautiful, and Darren loves beautiful things but even more than that he loves unique things.

He's certainly never met anyone like Chris. 

*

Darren's never been the kind of guy who wanted to make anyone be anything they aren't. 

Besides, it's just a job at first. He needs extra cash and it pays well for not a whole lot of work. Dragging his ass out of bed early a few times a week is worth it. 

He gets to know Chris first through the collection of things Chris asks him to buy. He gets to know Chris for the brand of frozen pizza he prefers, for the food-based addictions he has, for how he buys his cat the best brand of cat food and how half of his shopping lists for himself are junk food. 

And then the mail; he realizes Chris must be something famous. He goes on the internet and he looks Chris up. 

A  _writer_. 

That's the moment Darren really becomes intrigued. 

*

Chris is a little rude sometimes, yeah. 

But it's not like he means to be and Darren kind of digs the lack of any kind of bullshitting. 

It's refreshing, really. There's no guesswork. 

If Chris wants to say something, he says it. 

If Chris doesn't want to say anything, he doesn't say anything. 

Darren chatters, of course. He can't really stem the flow of words from his own mouth but he's learned to judge and read the signals. 

He also learns that when he talks, Chris actually listens, and that's kind of an amazing thing. 

*

When he first starts working for Chris, he's dating a girl. 

She's nice. She's his style, runs in his circles. They're good together. 

But there's an expiration date on it, and they both know it. She's got that other guy and he's got his music and they're drifting. They're fighting it, but not as much as they could if either of them really wanted it to stick. 

The first real fight they have toward the end is over Chris. 

 _"Stop romanticizing that nutjob_ ," she says. She's drunk and pissed off and lashing out, but it just - it makes him so mad. 

He tells her go find somewhere else to sleep until she's sobered up. 

The next day she's back and they don't really talk about it. 

*

Darren spots Chris's book on a shelf and he makes the whole group he's with stop so he can show them all. 

He flips it open to the back and there's a picture. Chris looks much younger in it than he is now, face rounder and smile brighter. He looks like a different person and Darren wonders how many years ago that was. 

"I'm buying it," he announces, and then realizes the whole display is nothing but Chris and he grabs one of every copy. 

His girl rolls her eyes. 

She's not his girl for much longer after that. 

*

Chris is a  _good_  writer. 

No, not good. He's fucking amazing. Even the ones that aren't really Darren's thing, the fairytale books, he finds himself sucked into. It's not the writing even, it's just the depth to the story. 

If Chris can make all of this up in his own mind to live in, no wonder he doesn't bother with the real world. 

He stays up all night reading until he's finished three of the four books. He should get some sleep but instead he gets up and puts a shirt on and drives straight to Chris's house. 

He's bursting with excitement and he just wants to share it. He wants Chris to know how talented he is, he wants Chris to know that he's sorry he didn't realize before.

But Chris looks like he's seen a ghost when Darren opens the door and  _oh_  Darren really didn't think this through. 

He's not upset when he walks away. Chris has limitations; Darren's known this for a while. It's not bad, it's just different, and Darren will just have to learn.  

He comes back the next day with a peace offering and he'd give anything to know what that look on Chris's face means as he eats it, but then Chris smiles up at him and Darren knows he's done something right. 

That's the moment in which making Chris smile at him like that becomes a goal in Darren's life. 

*

The first time Chris asks him to stay, Darren almost says no.

He's not even sure if he'd have anything in common with this guy.

But then he does stay, and they  _do_  have things in common. Just because he's shut into his house doesn't mean Chris is disconnected from the world. 

Chris has a wicked sense of humor. He's more caught up on the latest movies and tv shows than Darren is. His music collection takes up an entire hard drive. He has gadgets and tech that Darren has drooled over. 

He has a Star Wars poster autographed by George Lucas hanging on his wall. 

He's seen every episode of Avatar. 

He's easy to talk to, until suddenly he's done talking, and then Darren leaves. 

*

His parents invite him to New York for the holidays.

He could get the time off work easily, but he thinks about Chris alone in that house.

He spends a lot of time thinking about Chris lately. He finds himself replaying conversations they've had over and over in his head, smiling and holding them to close to himself because they make him feel warm and happy.

He goes home for a weekend to give them their gifts, and drive them to the airport for their flight out, then he heads back to Los Angeles.  

*

On Christmas Day, Chris answers the door for Darren wearing nicer jeans than Darren has ever seen him in, and a dark green button down that looks freshly ironed. 

It makes his skin look pale and perfect and his eyes so bright. 

He has a present for Chris in his car, but he isn't sure if Chris got him anything and he doesn't want to make Chris feel bad. 

He doesn't want to do anything to spook Chris. Being invited, not just allowed, into his home feels like an opportunity and he wants to grasp it with a delicate hold. 

* 

It's just after Christmas that Darren begins to suspect he has a thing for Chris.

But he doesn't know if it's even worth it to encourage that little spark. He doesn't even know if Chris is gay. Maybe Chris doesn't like sex at all. Maybe he's not attracted to anyone. 

He thinks long and hard about if that even really matters. 

But Darren likes sex. He likes companionship and good conversation, too. 

And if all he gets out of Chris is two of those, then that's cool. He'll take what he can get and hope for more, but if it never comes - he's happy just to know Chris and to know this thing between them is growing. 

* 

Then one night, he gets drunk. 

He gets drunk and he's been talking about Chris for two hours, apparently. 

Talking about how hot that line of his jaw is and how he's tall and how his ass looks so perfect and he totally works out because Darren had to get some kind of replacement part for a treadmill for him one day and  _his fucking arms, man_ until his entirely, completely, undeniably evil roommate shoves a phone in his face and says  _so tell him you want to jump his bones_. 

And Darren does. 

Sort of. 

Even drunk he's a little more eloquent than that. 

But he calls Chris and it rings and rings and then voicemail answers and Darren's disappointed but also relieved. 

"Chris, hey. This is Darren and, uh, man, hope I didn't wake you up? I don't know how late you stay up. You always look like you've been up for a while when I get there. I wonder what you look like with bedhead. Bet it's - hot. Adorable. Adorable-hot. Adorahot. I -  _shit, stop it, Joe, I'm talking -_ sorry, that's my roommate - what, um, oh, yeah. I just wanted to say hi, because I like you - talking to you. You're just... so fucking amazing, and if you'd let me I would-" 

The voicemail cuts off, his rambling with frequent pauses and breaths and words swimming around in his head just out of reach having filled up the time limit. 

* 

Chris never mentions the voicemail. 

Darren tries not to be be disappointed, but he fails miserably at it. 

But Chris doesn't seem upset with him when Darren shows up at his house on his next scheduled day. 

If Chris wants to pretend Darren never spilled his guts into that message, Darren will go along with that. He knows it could have ended so much worse. 

* 

"Listen." Three of his friends - his roommate, his ex, a music buddy he's grown pretty close to - sit him down over lunch. "You gotta get over this guy."

He knows exactly what they're talking about. 

He's been moping. 

It's really not like him. Yeah, maybe he has a few issues letting go (as evidenced by his ex still being one of the people he's closest to) but this isn't even a relationship that ended. 

It's a relationship that never existed, and he's still mourning it worse than his actual breakup less than a year ago. 

She points that out, but not unkindly. "He must be pretty special if you fell in love with him so fast." 

 _It wasn't fast_ , Darren wants to say. 

 _He's more special than you know,_ Darren wants to say. 

What doesn't even occur to him to say is,  _I'm not in love with him._

Because he is, and he's known it for a while. 

He's not the type to wallow over impossible situations, though. So he bucks up, he takes the advice of wise and well meaning friends, and a week later when a cute guy that happens to have swept back dark hair and be just the right height whispers in his ear that he'd like to take Darren out, Darren says maybe and he takes the guy's  number. 

* 

He sits in the vet's office and talks nonsense to the sweet, sick kitty in his arms. She's warm and heavy on his lap, not seeming to care at all that she's been carted around all over. 

She's normally a feisty cat. He doesn't know how old she is but she's always out when he comes over, sniffing around the bags he's brought and rubbing herself against his legs until he pays her some attention. 

She's a good fit for Chris, he thinks. "You take care of him, don't you, TC?" Darren coos at the cat. "You make sure he doesn't get too lonely? Must be a pretty good gig, too. I'd trade jobs with you if I could." 

She lifts her head just a little when his finger scritches underneath her chin, but then rests it right back down on his arm and closes her eyes. 

* 

He doesn't call Chris from the vet's office because he doesn't know how badly Chris will take it to hear that she's not coming back home.  _  
_

And maybe he's afraid Chris will tell him not to come back over. Darren just - he doesn't want to leave Chris alone. The thought of Chris, worrying and by himself... it does things to Darren's heart.

It's a good call. He's glad he goes back to the house, because Chris is so fucking  _fiercely_ able to take care of himself but Darren can see the cracks now and if a hug, or a few hugs, or a few hours of hugs, are what helps keep him patched together in a rough moment then Darren would give up anything- 

His arms go tighter around Chris as the thought bursts into his head. 

He would give up  _anything_  to be here holding Chris like this. And then he wants to cry, too, not for the cat but for what he wants so much and what he can't have. 

Darren's led a pretty charmed life. His relationships have been easily found and easily walked away from. He's turned romantic love into friendship deftly time and time again. He's hurt people, and he's been hurt, but never anything he couldn't recover from.

He's had unrequited crushes but he's never fallen in love with someone that might not love him back until Chris. He thought that sucked, and maybe it did, but that only scratches the surface. 

He's never fallen in love with someone that might  _need_  him either, and right now he suddenly understands what being with Chris would be. As he holds a shaking, crying,  _broken_  man in his arms, he knows this couldn't be a be half-hearted measure. It would be all in, life-changing. Rearranging how he thinks and how he works. 

If Chris lets him in, Darren can't take it back. He can't change his mind. 

He thinks maybe Chris has already let him in, and suddenly it's terrifying. 

He goes home that night and calls the guy from the bar. 

* 

The next day Chris asks him to stay for dinner. 

It's everything Darren's ever wanted and everything that kept him up at night all at the same time. 

He still doesn't even know what Chris wants from him. Chris could just want a friend. Darren isn't sure if he can take it, either way. Chris is so hard to read, like looking at a blank canvas. He's afraid he's just seeing what he wants to see there. He's afraid that he's not. 

It hurts so perfectly to love Chris but it scares him shitless to think of being loved  _by_  such a different, amazing kind of person. 

So for the first time in his life, Darren shies away from a risk. 

And the moment he sees the crushed look on Chris's face he knows what a mistake he's made. 


	5. With or Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through the storm we reach the shore  
> You give it all but I want more  
> And I'm waiting for you  
> \- With or Without You by U2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanart included in this chapter by [Robert](caustically.tumblr.com).

The new delivery boy doesn't get the right brand of peanut butter and he doesn't ever bring Chris lunch or coffee and he stares at Chris sometimes like he's a sideshow freak.

When he tries to pet the cat (The Cat), she hisses and stalks away.

"She's kind of a bitch," the delivery boy says, and laughs like he's made a funny joke.

"She's my cat," Chris says, voice flat.

(Even if maybe it's true. Even if maybe she's started pissing on towels that he leaves on the floor and shredding the arm of the couch like she hadn't ever before, but only when he's around. 

Chris thinks that The Cat is probably mad that Darren doesn't come over anymore. He thinks that she knows that it's his fault and she's punishing him and punishing the world because Darren was the happiest thing about her life and now Darren isn't around anymore.

He also thinks he's probably projecting, but that he's allowed his coping methods.)

The new delivery boy is an hour and a half late and when Chris doesn't let him in, he pounds on the door. Chris dry heaves in the bathroom until it's more than just that and the pounding doesn't stop for fifteen straight minutes. Fist on heavy would and the shrill demanding buzz of a phone as he calls and calls and calls.

He leaves four voicemails and then just dumps the groceries on the front doorstep and leaves. Half of the eggs crack and leak out of the container over everything else in a gooey, sticky, disgusting mess.

The incompetence is almost a relief because then Chris feels less guilty when he fires him after less than two weeks.

*

Every day Chris sits down at his computer to write.

Words come.

They're just not the right ones.

He stares at his window at the yard that's carefully mowed and landscaped twice a month. He likes looking out at the sun and flowers and bright, vivid green of the grass.

It looks like a space that is enjoyed, trampled and roughoused on. Maybe it should be.Maybe this is a house that should be lived in by a family and love and laughter and life, not inhabited by a shadow that only lurks around the windows.

He loses two hours to a story about a house that feels betrayed by the person living in it. It's part horror story and part fantastical tale of misery. He thinks about submitting it somewhere, maybe even just posting it on his website, but he finds all of the admin passwords have been recently changed.

Maybe he doesn't give his agent enough credit. Maybe she knows him a little too well, after all. It would make him laugh if it didn't make him want to cry, to realize that even on the vastness of the internet everywhere he turns he's met by limitations that are all his own fault.

*

The second delivery person is depressingly professional and entirely competent. She's a young girl in college and she's polite, friendly but not overly so, and carefully arranges his things. She has an attention to detail, sends him text messages instead of calling when she has questions, shows up precisely on time, and doesn't linger. 

They have one conversation. She's a writer, too; at least, she wants to be. But writing doesn't pay the bills and Chris remembers that time in his life entirely too well.

Her only crime is that her face isn't the one that he wants to see, but apparently that's enough.

He doesn't fire her, but her lets her go with six months pay and hopes that life is kind to her. 

He emails one of the bigwigs at his publisher and gives them her name, with a note that says if she comes to them that they should give her a chance.

Then he calls his agent and says that he doesn't think he really needs things delivered after all.

*

He thinks about Darren.

Of course he thinks about Darren. Every morning that he opens his eyes and his heart is still beating, every time he lays a too-cluttered head down on his pillow to sleep.

He doesn't eat that much anymore.

He doesn't sleep that much anymore.

He tried overindulging in alcohol but the headache didn't sit well with the heartbreak and it's not like his drunken self was any less maudlin than he is sober.

So he just keeps on - living. Existing.

Thinking about Darren.

*

His therapist comes.

Chris tells her how he's doing and he doesn't spare the details.

She ups his prescriptions of almost everything. Sleeping pills, waking pills, anxiety pills, depression pills.

They're mailed to him now. They show up in little plastic bottles inside a white paper bag inside a big brown box.

He stares at them in a row along his sink. There are so many things he could do with them. So many options in front of him.

He leaves them just like that, in a row, so they'll be the first thing he sees every time he walks into the room.

He's leaving all those options open.

*

There's a knock on the door one day and half past eleven.

Chris is in bed. (Again, or maybe still.)

He doesn't get up to answer it.

The next day there's another knock.

And the day after that.

On the fourth day Chris is awake. (Hasn't gone to sleep yet.)

He walks over to the door and looks through the peephole.

Darren.

He goes and gets in bed.

*

The fifth day, there's music.

He looks through the peephole and there's no blurred out figure there, but he hears the music so clearly.

He sinks down to the floor with his back to the door, sitting. The music is louder down here. Darren is sitting, back to the other side.

Chris leans his head against the solidness behind him and cries.

The song ends and he gets up and walks away.

*

*

The sixth day - music.

This time he breathes through it and holds himself together.

Three songs. Chris doesn't recognize them.

Three songs and he hears the sounds of movement. His heart jumps into his throat. His hand jumps onto the doorknob.

But he doesn't open the door yet.

*

Seven days. This time Chris is waiting at the door.

This time Darren speaks instead of sings. "Any requests?"

His voice is like a shock to Chris's system. He smiles, shaky, and opening the door feels like an out of body experience.

Darren's had a haircut since Chris has seen him. His stubble is grown out a little more, almost a beard. He's beautiful at he's staring at Chris like he can't believe his eyes.

"Wow," Darren says. "You - you opened the door."

"I did." Chris shuffles back. "I - um. Come in?"

"Yeah." Darren softly speaks, and then steps inside.

*

They sit on the couch and don't talk, not really. Not for the first few minutes. Chris is glad. He needs the time to just - adjust. Process. Not freak out. 

The Cat curls up on Darren's lap. He pets her and talks to her in a sweet, sappy voice.

"How's she been doing? All better now?" Darren asks.

"She is," Chris says. _But I'm not_.

"I missed her." Darren leans down and kisses the top of her head. At the hint of pressure she butts her head back up at him, kneading her claws. Darren looks over at Chris. "I missed you, too."

"I." The words catch in Chris's throat. "How was your - date."

There. There it is.

Big and blunt and ugly and obvious.

Darren will walk away now, Chris thinks.

But Darren doesn't. He just stares at Chris, like this is _important_ , like it's something serious, and he says, "He wasn't my type."

"And what is your... type?" Chris asks carefully.

Darren smiles like maybe that's what he was waiting on Chris to ask all along. "Someone smart. Someone with a good imagination and a creative mind. Someone funny as fuck who can always make me laugh. Someone that likes music as much as me. Someone that likes _my_ music, because, you know, performer's ego and all that bullshit. Someone that has a big heart and loves putting the puzzle of people together. Someone that... loves words. Loves color. Loves Avatar. Loves their _cat_."

Chris stares down at his lap. He feels like he never wants Darren to stop talking, because he doesn't at all know where this is going but he's starting to hope and hope is beautiful and dangerous. "I hope you find someone like that."

The Cat jumps off of Darren's lap. Darren puts his hands on his knees and leans forward. "Look at me?" He requests gently.

Chris breathes in hard through his nose and makes himself meet Darren eye for eye.

Darren smiles. "You get what I'm saying, right?"

Chris shakes his head, just a tiny little movement.

Maybe he does, but it's all so _much_ and so overwhelming.

But Darren asked him to look, so he's still looking. Even though his heart is pounding now and his blood is rushing and he feels sick, he's looking.

"It's okay," Darren says. "Do you... think you will? Eventually? Get it?"

Chris nods, the same jerky frantic restrained movement of his head.

"Then that's good enough, okay? That's good enough for me." Darren sits back in the chair and his hand reaches out to curl around the neck of his guitar. "Would you like me to play?"

Chris smiles and his shoulders drop ever so slightly from their tensed up place. "Please."


	6. Breathe Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be my friend  
> Hold me, wrap me up  
> Unfold me

Suddenly, Darren is _there_ again.

But it's not like before. It's not like before at all.

Darren is there every day. Sometimes just for a couple of hours, sometimes whiling away half the day. He always checks with Chris beforehand. He leaves when Chris asks him to, not appearing hurt or bothered by the request.

Sometimes they watch movies. Sometimes Darren writes songs. Sometimes he just plays the one's he's already written.

Chris comes to know the word and love them as much as he loves the heart behind them. 

* 

One day Darren shows up with groceries.

"I thought I'd make you dinner," he says. "If that's okay?"

"Why?" Chris asks.

Darren shrugs. "Because I felt like it? Come on, you can help. Are your chopping skills up to par?"

And he puts Chris to work, chopping and dicing. "What are we making?" Chris asks.

"Nope." Darren grins over at him cheerily. "It's a surprise. Also, I don't remember what it's called. And I'm probably bastardizing the recipe. But my mom used to make it when I was a kid and I fucking loved it."

"Your mom?" Chris is thrown for a loop suddenly imagining Darren existing outside of the rooms of his house. It's not that he doesn't know Darren has a family and friends and a  _life_ , it's just that he doesn't really stop to imagine what it must actually be like.

"Yeah, she's from the Philippines, so we're get multicultural up in here." He grabs one of the bags from the table and starts to pull things out, some spices in bottles marked from a store and some in bottles with handwritten labels and some in little baggies.

Chris is fascinated by Darren's enthusiasm more than the little cooking lesson he's getting.

When Darren goes back to stirring the meat he's cooking, Chris misses the sound of his voice.

It takes him a minute to realize that there's an easy way to keep Darren talking.

Ah, the art of conversation, so lost to Chris in these past few years.

"Tell me about your mother?" He asks. "Your family?"

Darren's eyes crinkle at the corner as he talks about a big brother who lives in New York ( _you gotta check out his band_ ) and his father and growing up, living in Hawaii and San Francisco and music and school and Chris could really listen to him talk forever. It's dangerous how much he wants to know everything about Darren. 

"I'll have to make you this amazing tilapia thing my mom does next time," Darren says. "You'd die. You like fish, right?"

_Next time._

"I do," Chris says. A shard of his own childhood lodges itself in the forefront of his mind. "My mother used to make salmon every Wednesday night. She read some article that said it would be good for my - my sister." 

"You have a sister?" Darren asks. He's holding the oversized spoon he's been using to stir pork in sauce but the motion of it has stilled. 

"Yeah. Hannah." It's the first time he's said her name to Darren. It's the first time he's ever even mentioned his family. "She's - special." 

Darren nods and goes back to stirring, but his eyes stay on Chris a few beats longer. "If she's half as special as you, I hope I get to meet her one day." 

* 

It should be getting better again, Chris thinks.  _He_  should be getting better again. 

But it's not. 

He feels like he's slipping underwater. Like a life vest is in sight but he can't reach it. Frustration makes him want to rip at his skin, claw all of this away until he finds himself underneath. 

He tells his therapist that. She listens, unhelpful but patient and not judging. 

Her suggestions seem ludicrous. He won't even pause to consider what she thinks that he should do. 

_Test his limits_. 

Does she know what the world is like? Chris does. And not in a terrified sense, just in a weary sense. 

He's always been happier by himself. It just wasn't until he became successful and well off financially that he could indulge that. 

Putting himself back into a life that made him uncomfortable, at best, and more often literally bullied and beaten seems - not just insurmountable, but laughable. 

_Why would he?_

* 

"Darren." He answers, when his mother asks why he didn't answer his phone when she called. 

If he weren't testy, in the middle of a chapter that was flowing well, he'd have thought a little more carefully about that. 

The silence is resounding until she finally clears her throat and says, "Who is Darren?" 

"He's." Chris stops, and rubs his hand over the bridge of his nose. 'He's. My friend." 

"Oh, sweetie." The hope, the restrained but so fucking obvious excitement and  _hope_ , in her voice hits him hard. 

"I have to go," he says, and hangs up. 

*

The days aren't so scheduled anymore. They aren't so regimented. 

Chris would mind if the gift of it weren't that Darren comes over more often now, and there's no expectation of a time limit. 

He doesn't show up every day, but even on the days he doesn't he texts Chris from morning until night, at least once an hour except when he's working. Chris usually goes to bed staring at the screen of his phone. 

It confuses his mind in so many ways, but it's not always a bad thing.

*

Chris doesn't even realize how accepting he's become of the disruption to his solitude, how much of an allowance he's made for Darren and that it really is only for Darren, until his medication is delivered by the pharmacy late one day. 

Darren's there. They've made lunch together, but Chris has been fidgety and short with him all day - the point where Darren asked if he should go. 

Chris had shaken his head, and muttered an apology. Darren leaving would solve the problem but really just make it worse because once the other person had come and gone Darren would still be gone.

He can't really explain that it's just the idea of being in a room with  _two people_. Facing two people in a day; he hasn't done that in a long time and been okay, not when it wasn't his family as a unit.  

They're watching a movie when the doorbell rings. Chris hasn't paid any attention to it. He can hardly sit still, eyes on the door and the windows, heart beating a little too fast, stomach tumbled with nerves. 

"Want me to get it?" Darren says, looking at Chris carefully.

There's an instant burst of relief that has  _yes_  on the tip of his tongue, but the word is stilled by the fact that he doesn't want to rely on Darren for that. Darren already sees him at his worse and must think so many things, even if he doesn't let on. It's suddenly now important to Chris to not add to that.

So he shakes his head and says, "Just stay here." Chris barely even says hello to the delivery person, signing and shutting the door on them. 

He goes into his bathroom and replaces the bottles. They're pushed back against the wall under his mirror now, no longer ever-present for consideration. He thinks he's past that, for now. 

But he  _needs_  to still have them there. 

He's beginning to hate that it needs it, though. 

He doesn't realize Darren's followed him until he turns around and jumps. 

"You okay?" Darren asks, holding out a hand. 

Chris stares at it for so long that Darren starts to draw it back, but then he reaches out and grasps it. "Bad day." 

Darren squeezes his fingers and says "Come on. Let's go finish the movie, okay?" 

Chris lets himself be led into his own living room and when they sit, this time Darren sits right beside him.

"This okay?" He asks, checking with Chris. 

Chris nods. He's exhausted from effort of warding off the panic attack that has been building all day, the one that Darren seems to have sliced right through as if it were nothing with just a touch. 

Is it really that easy? 

Darren hits play on the movie they'd been watching and and reaches down to take his hand again. Chris holds him too tightly and marvels over the fact that just this little thing can make him feel so much more human. 


	7. Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are the light,  
> That’s leading me,  
> To the place,  
> Where I find peace again.

Chris sits in his living room, fingers gripping tight to the arms of his favorite comfortable chair. 

Darren is asleep in his bed. 

He's never had anyone in his bed. Not this bed, at least, in a literal or a figurative sense. 

But Darren's been a little less and less energetic each day he's come over, and he hadn't been over at all the day before. He'd had to work, and then a gig to play, and it seemed like in the forty or so hours since Chris has seen him all the color had just gone out of Darren. 

Leaving him there on Chris's doorstep that morning looking exhausted, sniffling and couching and pathetic, and some caretaker instinct in Chris just took over. He'd guided Darren, hand in hand, into the living room made him sit. He'd given him cough syrup - the good kind he has from his last bout with illness, laced with codeine that knocked Darren out. 

When it became obvious that Darren wasn't able to hold his eyes open much longer, Chris had led him into the bedroom and now that's where Darren is, fast asleep and snoring with a congested rattle. 

Every few minutes Chris goes in there to just - stand. To look at him. To make sure that this is still reality and not some elaborate fever dream of his own. 

*

Darren will be hungry when he wakes up, Chris realizes. He'll need to eat something before he can have more medicine.

Soup. That's what sick people want, right?

Darren will need soup.

(Not need. Chris knows that. But it feels like a comforting thing to give, and it feels like what he's supposed to do.)

He paces his kitchen plucking items here and there. He has cans of soup, but he also has fresh vegetables, and broth, and chicken breasts.

He only cooks when he's really bored - bored, and can't write, and there's nothing on television, and his internet is down... it's been a while since he's had an excuse to cook.

But he gets the broth on and he boils the chicken and he salts and peppers and he adds in the vegetables and despite the simplicity of it all he's somehow surprised when it it ends up actually tasting good. 

*

He sits on the couch with his laptop until he hears the mattress springs squeaking. He needs a new mattress, just not badly enough that he's gone through the process of ordering one. 

He gets up and walks into the bedroom, standing by the bed. 

"Hey," Darren says, voice raspy. "Fuck. How long was I out?"

"Three hours," Chris says. 

He's entranced by how casually Darren exists in this private space of Chris's, under the covers with his head on the pillow. 

Chris will  _not_ be that teenage girl that vows to never wash the pillowcase again, but deep down he maybe he wants to. 

His bed will smell like Darren when he gets into it. 

"Need me to go?" Darren asks, though leaving looks like the last thing he really wants to do. 

"No," Chris says softly. He walks over and sits on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a truck hit me." Darren rolls onto his side so he can look at Chris more directly. 

"Do you have fever?" Chris asks, and without thinking presses the backs of his fingers to Darren's forehead. The skin is overly warm and clammy but Darren sighs and leans into the touch. 

"Feels good," he mumbles, closing his eyes. 

Chris leaves his fingers there and then drags them upward, into Darren's hair. It's curly, cut short but not too short, and the strands cling to his fingers as he brushes back and forth through them. 

Darren groans and his eyelashes flutter up but his eyes don't open all the way. "Oh, now that. That feels good." 

Chris can't fight the dimpled smile on his face. He doesn't really try, not since Darren isn't looking anyway. 

Chris keeps petting through his hair until a coughing fit disturbs the moment, then he gets to his feet and says, "You can have more medicine, and - are you hungry? I made soup." 

"You made soup?" Darren sits up, swinging his legs off the bed. "I would fucking  _love_ soup."

*

He sits at the table and they both eat.

"This is really good," Darren says. "My stomach's been off all week so I haven't had much. This is perfect." 

Chris smiles down at his own bowl. It's not amazing and he knows that, but it also doesn't taste bad. 

Darren likes it. 

That's all that matters. 

He manages half the bowl before he pushes it away, looking queasy. "Sorry. Just... nothing's sitting right." 

Chris gets the cough medicine from the counter and hands it over to Darren. "Go ahead." 

"I shouldn't," Darren says. "I've gotta drive back. That stuff knocked me out cold." 

"Are you working tonight?" Chris asks. 

Darren shakes his head. "They said I was in too rough shape after last night, told me take a day to rest up." 

"Then you can," Chris says. "You can sleep hear again."

His heart thumps with excitement as he makes the suggestion, pulse speeding up. He wants Darren in his bed again. 

"You sure?" Darren asks. 

"Yeah." Chris says, and sits back, watching as Darren takes another dose of the medicine. 

*

They sit up watching tv until Darren starts to doze off again. 

Chris shakes him, gently. His hand curls momentarily into the curve of Darren's shoulder through his t-shirt before he rocks it back and forth to wake him. 

Darren starts. "Shit. Sorry, I just..." A yawn breaks up his words. He laughs sheepishly. "Naptime, I guess." 

"Okay," Chris says, and stays sitting. 

Darren gets a few steps away and then turns back. "Hey, Chris?"

"Yeah?" Chris clutches his phone tightly. 

"You want to come lay down with me?" Darren asks, a little hesitation in his voice. 

Chris runs his tongue over the seam of his pressed together lips from the inside and then nods. "Okay."

*

Side by side on the bed. Darren's under the covers, but Chris is still above them. That's okay. He likes it better like this, right now. 

They're sharing a pillow, though. It screams intimacy in a way that Chris thought would be terrifying, only... it isn't, really. 

Darren's forehead is so close to Chris's, so close to touching. Chris can feel the heat radiating from him. 

"I want to kiss you," Darren whispers. 

Chris is stunned but not so stunned that he doesn't whisper back, "I want you to." 

Darren's sleepy eyes are lit with warmth. "You'll catch this cold." 

"I don't care," Chris says. His fingers twitch restlessly against the blanket. 

"I'll take care of you if you do," Darren promises, and then he tilts his head just so and his lips press to Chris's, not a short kiss but not a particularly long one either, not soft or hard but just enough pressure to  _feel_ and just enough movement to give Chris a chance to shift his own jaw in response. 

Then Darren pulls back with the happiest sigh. Chris wants to kiss him again, he wants to do that over and over, forever in this bed doing that or maybe more, but the corners of Darren's mouth go lax in his contentment and his eyes slip shut and the medicine is doing its work again. 

When Chris is sure that Darren's really asleep he turns onto his back and starts up at the ceiling, smiling. 


	8. Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fight fear for the selfish pain, it was worth it every time  
> Hold still right before we crash ‘cause we both know how this ends

They kiss now. 

Kissing is a thing they do. 

When Darren shows up, and when he leaves.

In the kitchen when they're cooking.

On the couch, when they're watching tv.

Like that one kiss was the key to unlock a door, it's constant and unassuming and joyful. 

*

They don't really do  _more_  than kiss. 

Chris thinks Darren would probably like to. He gets that look on his eye, and Chris likes it as much as he's intimidated by it.

He doesn't feel pressured, though. Maybe that's Darren's gift, his special talent. An ability to put anyone near him at ease. 

Chris accepts that there's a chance Darren makes everyone in his life feel this good, but he'd like to think that he is one of the people that makes Darren feel that good in return. 

He's not sure why, or what he has to offer that Darren seems to find so appealing, but he's not going to question his luck. 

He'll just enjoy it and try not to tack on  _while it lasts_  to that thought too often. Darren is an amazing person and he's changing Chris and Chris is helpless to do anything but let him while it feels this good. 

*

Darren is a good kisser, too.

Chris doesn't have a huge well of experience to draw comparison from, but Darren's lips are soft and sometimes they taste like mint and sometimes they taste like candy that he's been eating and sometimes they don't really taste like anything at all. Sometimes the skin is bitten and chapped and sometimes it's soft with balm and sometimes they suck at his own lips in a way that sends a tingle straight through to Chris's gut. 

He's not just a good kisser, but he's also good at kissing  _Chris_.  It's not that he's overly careful in a way that would embarrass Chris and make him feel inexperienced, but he just... 

He's focused. He's focused on kissing, and just that.

It's how he kisses Chris like he's happy to just be kissing Chris. Not like it's a prelude to something else or like he's impatient to get through with it. 

Like he's doing just want he wants to be doing. 

*

Sexuality isn't something Chris has thought a lot about in his life.

There's always been so much more than was important to him than getting laid.

Getting out of Clovis, getting away from his family, getting a job and money and independence, writing and getting published.

It didn't seem like an experience he was missing out on to him. No one wanted to date him as a chubby, acne-faced, high voiced teenager and while success and delayed puberty eventually brought suitors he just.. hadn't been interested. 

He'd gone from a repressed, conservative childhood to a repressed, socially anxious early twenties and what was the peak of his experimental phase is about on par with the average base-rounding a sixteen year old does.

When he tried it, succumbing to the pressure of what society told him he was a freak for not doing, sex just made him nervous. Being exposed made him upset in ways he couldn't at the time define. Orgasms were easy enough to achieve on his own and he was never uncomfortable with his own company. 

He has a certain image in his mind's eye of how he wants people to perceive him. He wants a body he's not embarrassed by and he wants to be healthy and he knows that with his chosen lifestyle - well, he's not exactly going on five mile jogs outside every morning. Instead he stands at a treadmill and looks out the window it keeps him feeling fit and happy with what he sees when he looks in the mirror and for a long time that's just... all he needed. 

He has a sex drive, though. He's not immune to urges but he has always had the internet and access to amazon and plenty of money to blow. 

He didn't want or need another  _person_  to be satisfied. 

Not until Darren came along and showed him a glimpse of what it might be like to not walk every road alone and isolated. 

*

"So I have a proposition," Darren says. It's late afternoon. He'll have to leave soon, he has a show. "I want you to see me play." 

"I see you play every day," Chris says. 

"Yeah, but. I want you to see one of my  _shows_." 

Chris draws in on himself. He knew it was too good to be true. He knew Darren would want more than he could give, he  _knew-_

"Hey." Darren's voice cuts through the rising chaos in Chris's mind, his hand on Chris's arm. "Listen to me, okay? Let me explain." 

Chris nods and forces himself to breathe. 

Darren keeps talking. "I've got a friend that's gonna record it. I want to add some of my live music to my demo reel. He's a total tech guy and I asked him if he could live stream it and he said yeah. Said it was no big deal. So will you watch me tonight?" 

"Yeah," Chris says. 

* 

He watches on his laptop, from his bed. 

The feed starts a few minutes before Darren starts to play. The camera is on a tripod on what must be some kind of stand or table, so the image is crisp and clear and stable. 

People walk in and out of the frame and Chris smiles on instinct when he hears a laugh near to it that he knows so well. 

Then Darren takes a seat on the edge of the stage. Someone walks up to Darren, points to the camera. Darren shoots it a big grin and a wave. 

Chris smiles into his pillow. 

Chris watches Darren laughing and chatting with people that he's so familiar with, they must be friends. 

He watches Darren hugging people, casual with his arm around them. His stomach jolts and dips and he feels like this is an invasion of some kind, even though he's been invited. 

Darren makes it look so easy. 

It's not that easy to Chris, not at all. He jams his palms against his eyes and tries to rub away the sting behind his lids but his palms just come back smeared wet. 

He understands that Darren just wanted to share his performance with Chris, but Chris can't remember the last time he felt so empty and  _alone_  and segmented from the world. 

It hurts, it hurts so much. It hurts so much more than anything Chris can ever remember and it's not because he's afraid of being in a place like that but it's because he  _wants_  to be there and he's afraid. 

People clear out and Darren takes the stage. He has a guitar on a stand behind him and he looks the part of rogue musician, messy hair and tight t-shirt and jeans. 

"So this is for a guy that's pretty fucking special to me. He couldn't be here tonight, but I know he's watching." Darren looks straight at the camera and smiles and then he starts to sing. 

* 

Chris has never seen Darren alive like he's alive on the stage. 

He turns it off halfway through and lays in his darkened bedroom, eyes dry but heart and chest heavy with all the things he wants to sob out. He can't get that kind of release from it, though.

It's not so easy to fix as just letting go, even though at the moment Chris  _wants_  to. 

He can't have a life like that with Darren. He's not that person. 

Every time Darren walks away from Chris he walks back into that life. With other people, loud voices and drunken crowds, parties and friends and Darren is natural in it. That's his environment, the way this is Chris's. 

He's choking on self-pity now, because he'd like to play the martyr and say he'll just let Darren go and save him both the future pain. But he knows that Darren would recover. Darren would have a million different arms to hold him in his hurt. Darren would be fine.

And Chris would... survive. Or he wouldn't. Either way, no great loss to the world except his words and Chris knows that even those are not really such a loss. 

He gets a text. He knows it's from Darren. No one else would text him this late. The concert must be over.

When the text goes unanswered, the phone starts to ring. It's silenced, but the light of the screen fills the room. 

Chris doesn't just ignore it, but he shoves his phone off the bed and covers his ears with his hands to escape the sound of it vibrating against the floor. 


	9. Feel It Turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a dream I was moving forward  
> Floating gently to the sun  
> I've come to see my world rewarded  
> A new day has begun

At four in the morning, Chris opens a door and steps outside.

Its not some earth-shattering feat.

It's only his own back yard. His back yard doesn't scare him, really. Not at night, with no people around at all.

He's just never had a reason to go out there. He doesn't have a reason now, either, he just - does. Because he hasn't slept and the walls of his bedroom were closing in on him and restlessness took root.

So he stood in front of the back door and he watched his hand on the doorknob, turning and then -

Then he's outside.

He walks onto dewy, damp grass in his bare feet and just breathes in the night air.

*

He goes back inside long enough to get his phone and call Darren.

Darren answers, sounding alert despite the hour. "Chris? Are you okay? I've been freaking out, man. I tried to text you earlier and you didn't say anything back and then you didn't answer earlier when I called-"

Darren stops talking, and that's good, because Chris isn't going to interrupt him. Chris would let him talk forever if it stalled the response that will inevitably be expected.

"Are you okay?" Darren asks again.

Chris can't lie, he can't say yes, because he's not. Instead he says, "Can you come over?"

*

It's not quite five when Darren shows up.

It's still dark outside. Chris hears the car down the street before it gets to his house. He sees the brightness of headlights and then the sound of the engine cutting off.

He gets up and walks through the house. He's standing in the open doorway before Darren even gets to him.

Darren wraps him in a huge without even hesitating. He's warm against Chris and he smells like sleep. He's wearing a soft t-shirt and sweatpants, not even dressed properly.

Chris loops his arms around Darren's neck, backs of his fingers against his own elbows, and holds on tight.

*

"Sit outside with me," he says, and he takes Darren's hand and guides him through the house.

Darren's eyes go wide and confused. Chris wishes he could explain, but he doesn't even know how. He doesn't know what he'd say. He doesn't know what he's feeling. Just that it was bad, and then even worse, and then the worst -   
  
And then it cracked into gaping emptiness. He had that same feeling he always gets when he finishes up a novel and he's not sure what he's going to write next, he just knows that he needs to write something. Except this time the story isn't characters in a fictional world. This time the story is just... him.   
  
This is his story, and right now all he knows is that it's taking him back out into his backyard again.

But Darren goes with him, though. Without knowing what they're doing, or why Chris has called him here in the middle of the night, without making Chris explain a fucking thing, Darren still follows him.

*

They lay down on the grass outside. It's a touch too cold and not entirely comfortable but Chris feels so desperate for something out of his depth and something he can accomplish that he doesn't want to give this up.

"Did I do something?" Darren finally asks.

He sounds so upset that it makes Chris ache in sympathy.

"No," Chris finally says, because the truth that he would never deny even to himself is that Darren hasn't done anything wrong.

But Darren still looks at him like he knows there's something, even if Chris won't say.   
  
"You were so good tonight," Chris offers. He wants something - something to bridge this thing between them, even while knowing the distance he's feeling is his own doing. It's a strange path to navigate, hurting because of Darren and at the same time wanting to do anything he can to stop Darren from hurting in return.

Darren gives him a sad little half smile. "I wanted to be good for you."

Chris cups his face and kisses him, one of the first and few he's initiated on his own.

*

It's been too long and tumultuous of a night and Darren feels too solid and reassuring against him for Chris to resist sleep. He's got his head pillowed on Darren's shoulder and one of Darren's arms around him.   
He's not sure how much time has passed - maybe an hour, probably not much more - but the sun is creeping up over them.

Chris watches it and listens to the thump of Darren's heart beat. He doesn't go back to sleep, but after a few more minutes Darren wakes up, too. Chris can feel the slow tensing of his muscles, the little whining stretch he gives.   
  
When Darren's shirt lifts up with the stretch Chris reaches out to brush his fingers over the trail of hair under Darren's belly button. He feels Darren's breath catch and smiles, lets his hand rest there as they both watch the sun finish its crawl into the sky.

*

When the neighbors around them start to stir and emerge, Chris and Darren go back inside.

They get back into bed, because Darren says he can always sleep and Chris... Chris just needs it. They don't wake up again for hours and hours, until late in the day.

Chris leaves Darren in his bed to call his mother.

"Sweetie," she says. "How are you doing today?"

Chris breathes. In, out. In, out. "Better," he says. "I think." 

It's a departure from their normal script.

"Oh," she says. "You know I love you, don't you? Every minute of my life, you're my baby boy."

Chris might have his issues, he might appreciate his distance and he might be fine with many things between them going forever unspoken... but she's still his mother.

When she says she loves him and she believes he can do anything, he feels the promise of it in him and he feels better for it.

He hangs up the phone and sits there for a few minutes, just staring into space - out the window, to outside. He's lost in his own mind until Darren walks into the room. 

"Coming back to bed?" Darren asks, shifting on his feet a little and then scratching the back of his neck absently. 

He looks sleepy and scruffy and messy and so, so beautiful. He looks at Chris and the way his whole expression changes makes Chris feel the same way he had listening to his mother's voice. 

*

It starts with opening a door and deciding that maybe he needs to leave it open.

-  **the end**

( **part ten, which is essentially an epilogue, coming some time in the next couple of days)**


	10. (epilogue) I'll Follow You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ll follow you…to where forever lies  
> Without a doubt I’m on your side  
> There’s nowhere else that I would rather be  
> \- I’ll Follow You by Shinedown

"You know, he wasn't always like this," Karyn says. "He was a sweet little boy. He used to drive us insane running all around the house play acting. He'd bring in twigs from outside and swear they were his wand, or tie towels around his neck..." 

She sighs and looks sad as she talks, sitting across from Darren at the little breakfast nook in Chris's house. Hannah and Chris's father are still asleep.

Chris is awake but he's writing and Darren doubts they'll see him until lunch time. After a couple hours of nervous observation he seemed to come to the conclusion that it was fine to abandon Darren to his family, even in his own house. 

It's where they both live now, but Darren will never stop thinking of it as  _Chris's house_ . He wonders if Chris will ever want to move, but if he doesn't Darren's okay with that.  It doesn't really matter whose name is on the paperwork, anyway. They both bow down to the almighty and blessedly benevolent rule of TC. 

Darren laughs. "Yeah, I can see it." 

Darren enjoys picturing Chris as a little kid. He wonders if he can convince them to bring baby pictures next time. Then he wonders how many different and creative death threats Chris would issue if he did. 

Worth it, probably. 

They sit coffee in silence for a minute after that. Darren can tell that Karyn is lost in her own mind. He's struck by how he can see Chris in her in this moment. Not the facial features so much as just the way she kind of turns her focus to somewhere inside. 

"So what do you do for a living, exactly?" Karyn asks. "You said you had work tonight-"

"Oh, yeah - I'm a musician. I play two or three nights a week at this restaurant. It's cheesy as fuck but it's a paycheck and I like having an audience. I've got regulars, it's pretty cool." 

"Oh." Her smile is a little absent, like that doesn't exactly sound impressive to her but she's far too polite to let on. "Well, that sounds... interesting."

More silence. Darren resists the urge to check his phone. Something about a motherly presence seems to warm him against his. His own has a habit of slapping his hand when he reaches for any kind of device during a meal. 

"He didn't tell us until yesterday that you were living here," Karyn says. 

Darren's actually a little surprised that Chris had mentioned him at all. Chris is big on information being need to know. Most of the time, in his opinion, no one needs to know... anything, really. 

"He didn't tell me you guys were coming until a couple of days ago," Darren admits. "And I didn't know today was his birthday until this morning. Said it slipped his mind. I didn't even have time to get him anything" 

That it _slipped his mind_ was a lie, and Darren knew it. Chris's mind is a steel trap, nothing escapes it. He remembers every insignificant detail of everything, especially the things that he wishes he could forget. 

That's part of why he is the way he is. His new therapist helped him realize that. Just that Chris comes out of his sessions wanting to share with Darren is enough for Darren to know how much good this new one is doing for him. 

"He was a peculiar child, but I never thought... it's hard," Karyn says. "To not feel like I failed him. Things got so hectic there and we took him out of school when he said he was getting bullied. We should have put him back in sooner, I know that. I think that might have been what did it." 

Darren shrugs. "I think that's a bad way to look at it. Chris is just different. If he was happy like that, then it's not right or wrong and I don't think there was just one thing that made him become who he is today." 

She doesn't get it. Darren can tell from just the look on her face that she doesn't get it. 

Darren even gets her  _not_ getting it. It's not like he's immune to the frustrations of loving someone like Chris. It's only been a few months but he's had so many moments of... not  _wanting_ to walk away, but feeling like that was the only option he had. Like that was what Chris really wanted him to do.

He just understands that even in the moments Chris does want that, and he means it, that it comes from a place of  

"He just couldn't have been happy like that, all alone," Karyn says. 

"I think he did okay," Darren says, and leaves it at that. 

Darren could argue, but he doesn't think there's really much point. Chris warned him as much. 

_ She accepts Hannah because she can see what's wrong with Hannah. She can't see what's wrong with me, so she thinks I'm just not trying hard enough.  _

And Chris had sounded so sad, so frustrated and maybe a little angry underneath, that Darren hadn't had a response except to wrap him up and kiss him until he forgot everything that hurt. 

It's not a cure but it's a fucking great temporary bandage. 

"Well, now he's got you." Karyn smiles then. Darren's only been in her company for barely more than a day but she keeps giving him these looks like he's some kind of white knight. Darren knows the truth. "You gave him a reason to want to get better." 

Darren will be a rock when Chris needs it, he'll be a shoulder to cry on or fling words at, he'll be whatever Chris needs because Chris gives him back just as much. Chris  _loves_  with as much intensity and drive as he does anything else he sets out to do. 

If loving him is what makes Chris move to a place in his life where he's happier, Darren is glad to be behind that motivation but it's easy to be someone's end goal. It's so much harder to be the person working toward it. 

Darren shrugs. "All I gave him was me. He did the rest himself." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow up one-shot set in this universe can be found here: 
> 
> [the time it takes to get from here to there](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1548599)


End file.
